Brother Cadfael 05: Leper of Saint Giles by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online

my lord has been so hard a man to serve. I could not complain for myself. But for his tenants and villeins, and such as fall under his justice ..." He hesitated. "I have my letters, I can read Latin hand. I was at school with monks, it stays with a man. I don't say my lord's worse than his kind, but God knows he's no better. I should have asked my father to take me away to another lord, if ..."
    If this courtship, to dignify it by that name, had not begun to be mooted between Domville and the Massard heiress. If the boy had not seen, marvelled at, been captivated by, that tiny, fragile, virginal creature between her two dragons. His lord's entry where she was had been entry also, at whatever hopeless distance, for his esquires.
    "By staying with him," said the youth, wrenching at the insoluble complications of his predicament, "I could at least see her. If I left him, how could I ever get near? So I stayed. And I do try to serve honestly, since I so promised. But oh, Brother Cadfael, is this just? Is it right? For the love of God, she is eighteen years old, and she shrinks from him, and yet, for all I can see, he is better than what she now has. She has no happiness now, and can look for none in her marriage. And I love her! But that's by the way. Of small account, if she could be happy."
    "Hmmm!" said Cadfael with mild scepticism, and stirred his gently bubbling pot, which began to fill the hut with a heady aromatic sweetness as it simmered. "So many a lover has probably vowed, but with one eye on his own advantage, all the same. I suppose you'll tell me you're willing to die for her."
    Joscelin melted suddenly into a boy's grin. "Well, not with any great eagerness! I'd liefer live for her, if it can be arranged. But if you mean, would I do all in my power to set her free to take another of her own choice, yes, I would. For this match is not of her choice, she dreads and loathes it, she is being forced into it utterly against her will."
    There was no need to labour it; the first glimpse of her face and bearing had said it all for him.
    "And those who should most guard her and work for her good are using her for their own ends, and nothing more. Her mother - she was Picard's sister - died when Iveta was born, and her father when she was ten years old, and she was given over into her uncle's ward as her nearest kin, which is natural enough, if her kin had proved natural to her! Oh, I am not so blind as not to know there's nothing new in a guardian making the best profit for himself out of his ward, instead of using his own substance on her behalf, and plundering her lands instead of nourishing them for her future good. I tell you, Brother Cadfael, Iveta is being sold to my lord for his voice and countenance with the king, and advancement under his shadow - but for more than that. She has great lands. She is the only Massard left, all that great honour goes with her hand. And I suspect that the bargain they've struck over her means the carving up of what was once a hero's portion. A great swathe out of those lands of hers will surely stay with Picard, and some of what goes with her to Domville will have been milked hard for years before it passes. A very fine arrangement for both of them, but crying wrong to Iveta."
    And every word could all too well be true. Such things happen when a child is left orphan and heiress to great estates. Even if the child be a boy, and young enough, thought Cadfael, and with no one to protect him, he can be married off to make a profitable alliance for his guardian, to join up lands convenient for exploitation, to spite a rival, just as nimbly and irresistibly as can a girl; but with a girl the thing is more usual, and less to be questioned. No, no one in authority between baron and king will lift a finger to interfere with Iveta's destiny. Only, perhaps, some rash young hothead like this one, at his own risk and hers.
    He did not ask what they had been whispering together about, when he stumbled